You seem to be arguing based on whether YOU like stories or directions. That's fine, but you're saying that the company has an agenda. That's hard to prove, especially as this has been going on for DECADES. You mentioned Claremont's run being great, but he himself could have had an agenda by making the team mostly female. The same with Roger Stern having Monica lead the Avengers, or when Luke Cage joined a team, or when Byrne created Northstar. And so on.

What most people are objecting to - myself included - is that the agenda has changed. Morphed into something different.

Of course Claremont had an agenda in creating lots of good female characters. Of course there was an agenda in creating female driven books at Marvel. And of course there was an agenda in creating books with minority characters. But Claremont either took female haracters who already existed (Storm, Carol Danvers) or created brand new ones (Kitty Pryde, Rogue). He didn't sideline Scott Summers to create a female Cyclops. Likewise, no characters were brushed aside when Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, The Cat or Shanna hit the stands.

The characters were either original with their own unique identities, or the next step in the evolution of pre-existing characters - but again with unique identities.

Okay, Steve, Tony and Don were sidelined briefly when Rhodey, Eric and John took over, but nobody - NOBODY - thought that those were ever meant to be permanent changes.

So here's where the agenda has changed: Back in the day when changes happened no one thought it was anything other than the desire by the creators to tell good stories.

Today, it feels like the changes are being driven by the need to be politically correct, and the storytelling is forced to take a back seat to that.

Quote:

And yes, people did complain back in the day. Gwen Stacy's death caused a LOT of outrage and controversy back in the day, now it's considered one of the best deaths in comics. Or when Barbara Gordon got crippled. And so on.

Yes, sure there were complaints. But I don't recall anyone complaining about diversity in characters. Using Claremont and female characters as an example again, I was an avid lettercolumn reader, I read the comics journals that were being published at the time, and I spoke to many fans at my local comics shops and at conventions, and I can put my hand on my heart and say that I never heard anything negative about what Claremont was doing*.

*Okay, there was some negativity a little later from some who said he was just writing male dialogue and assigning it to female characters, I think. But never simply because the characters were female.

Quote:

Regarding the whole Diversity thing, you have to also take into account that comics don't sell like they used to. So they do have to try to appeal to readers of different races, backgrounds and cultures. Not everything these days revolves around Superman and The X-Men anymore.

And they CAN be diverse. They SHOULD be diverse. And I think most fans, the vast majority would welcome that.

But HOW they do it is important. They must be seen to be acting with integrity, to generating great NEW characters with unique qualities and identities, and that they're always putting the storytelling first.

You can go back to the beginning and surmise (Probably correct.) that the creators had agendas. Wonder Woman was created by a renowned male feminist to represent a positive role model for women. Superman was originally created to be a champion for social justice and to fight inequality. Captain America was created during the second World War (Remember him punching Hitler?). And so on.

As for your other points, yes all of this happened back in the day. Fans were complaining about Captain America and Tony being replaced. And II'm sure that there were people who were complaining about Tony being an alcoholic, or Jean Grey becoming a villain and dying, etc. And surely NOBODY thinks that Tony won't be Iron Man again, that Steve won't be back (Oh, he is? Hmmmm!), that Jane will stay Thor forever, and so on. This has been going on for DECADES! Almost any long-running serial fiction comic character has gone through this.

As to Claremont, well he did sideline some characters. He also had a tendency to retcon relationships between characters. Not everything that he did was gold. And then there were the Jean replacements that he wrote.